


Skipping Stones

by Potboy, SeekingIdlewild



Series: Stepping Stones [2]
Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Established Relationship, Kidfic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3521597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potboy/pseuds/Potboy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeekingIdlewild/pseuds/SeekingIdlewild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Young is mortally wounded on an away mission, Rush knows that the only hope for his survival is the Ancient sarcophagus. But sub-optimal power levels produce a result that he wasn't quite expecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Everything was burning.

Young wasn't even aware of individual parts of his body anymore. He couldn't even recall a time when he had been composed of a head, a torso, arms and legs. He was amorphous. Intangible. Fashioned from fire and agony and regret. He seemed to be flying through red-tinged corridors, which made a nice change from the blinding, red-tinged sunlight of several minutes earlier, but which didn't seem to lessen the pain that formed his entire being.

There were voices around him. Shouting at first, then rapid, low conversations.

"I'm losing him fast." That was TJ's voice, tight with terror. He wanted to reach out to her, absorb a little of her strength and take some of her fear with it, but movement and touch were beyond him.

"Stay with us, Colonel." That sounded like Greer. Young's last sight of Greer had been of his face covered with blood. Was he okay? Young wanted to ask, but he had no voice. He thought maybe it hadn't been Greer's own blood on his face, but he couldn't quite remember now. There had been so much confusion at the time, and Young had been half-wild with pain.

Maybe the blood was Young's. Yes, that would make sense. Anything that hurt this much probably involved a fair amount of blood.

Another corridor. He wasn't moving under his own power, but he was definitely moving. He wondered where he was going, and whether he would live long enough to find out. He thought it might be fine with him if he didn't. He would like not to exist right about now. That sounded nice.

"Where are you taking him?" Rush's voice, high and imperious and scared.

Oh, right, Rush. No dying, then. Rush wouldn't approve.

"Stasis pods," TJ barked back.

"No, this way, to the sarcophagus. There's enough power."

More corridors. Young had completely lost track of where he was, but he didn't mind that. He was somewhere on Destiny, so that was all right.

Just a little while ago he had been on a planet, and that hadn't turned out so well. The abandoned ruins that his team had been investigating had not been left completely undefended by their former occupants. He remembered the springy texture of moss-like vegetation under his feet as he approached one of the crumbling buildings. Greer was just behind him, James a little farther back, and Volker, Park, and Dunning bringing up the rear. Despite the crew's poor track record with ruins, these looked intriguing enough that an air of optimistic enthusiasm surrounded the little group of explorers. If nothing else, everyone was happy to be getting a bit of sunshine. But something had gone wrong almost immediately.

He remembered an odd clicking noise coming from directly ahead. It sounded like a child's wind-up toy in action. He remembered turning, shouting, waving for everyone to start running. He remembered a deafening noise, flying through the air, landing hard and knowing nothing after that but this endless, torturous pain.

It must have been some sort of anti-personnel mine that had activated once Young got within range. Jesus. Even dead aliens had it in for them.

Rush's face came into view for a moment. His skin was ashen, and he looked every one of his fifty-plus years. The pinched expression on his face reminded Young of how his mother used to look when money got tight and she was working two jobs just to keep their heads above water. His mother's hair had also been brown threaded with silver, but her gray-green eyes had been milder. Kinder.

Young missed her.

"Young," Rush murmured. God, his _voice_. He sounded so terrified. It must look bad. It must look _awful_ to put that note of desperation in his voice.

Why was it always like this between them? They just couldn't catch a break. If they weren't fighting each other, then they were fighting something else, be it aliens or shipmates or death itself. They hadn't really learned how to slow down, laugh together, find peace in each other. They talked, they worked, they argued, they fucked, they fell into an exhausted sleep in each other's arms, and then they woke up and did it all over again. And yeah, that was a huge improvement over their previous relationship. It was amazing to be part of a team, to be united against everything the universe threw their way. But now the universe had just fucked Young over, possibly for the last time, and he was going to lose Rush before he'd fully gotten to know him, and that just seemed deeply unfair.

Why couldn't he just enjoy being in love like a normal person? Why was everything always so complicated?

He was completely disoriented now. He felt like he was floating, and that put him in mind of the pond near his childhood home where he used to retreat when his homework got all jumbled up on the page and he couldn't make sense of it anymore. In the summer he'd strip down and plunge into the water, come up on his back, stare up at that endless sky, and daydream about flying. At other times he'd collect smooth pebbles along the banks and send them skipping across the water, disturbing the mirror-like surface with chains of perfect ripples. He'd never felt that kind of peace or happiness anywhere else.

"Young, you're almost there. Just hold on."

He'd like to take Rush to that pond. It would be easier there. They might finally have time to relax. Maybe throw a few stones to obliterate the memory of thrown punches, go swimming in that cool water and forget the taste of dust in their mouths. Leave past conflict and current stress behind and just have fun together for once in their goddamn lives. Was that really too much to ask?

Apparently so.

His vision had lost its red hue and was turning black. Oh, shit. This was it. He was fading out, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Even the voices weren't making sense anymore. He couldn't feel the pain now. He couldn't feel anything at all. Was he still floating? No, now he was sinking. Now the darkness was rushing in and he was lost.

 

* * *

 

Shit. Shit shit shit shit-- Rush needed to shut up with the screaming inside his head and _do something._ Shit.

Young was-- oh God, he looked bad. There was rubble and blood and dirt. Tears were streaking down Lieutenant Johansen's face, and Young's eyes were open but not focusing because of course they weren't focusing when there was a great ruddy piece of rusted iron sticking into his belly and coming out at the back.

Inside Rush's head he was screaming so loud it was a wonder the universe didn't shake itself apart around him. Screaming in the marrow of his bones and the hollows of his lungs and--

He took a step back from it all. It wasn't helping.

Stasis, TJ said, as if that would do any good. Oh yes, they could freeze Young in stasis, hold him suspended at the point of death, forever, but it wouldn't solve the problem. The metabolic shock of ever being revived from stasis might be enough to kill him on its own. If not, they'd still have to pull that thing out at some point, and surgery on this ship wouldn't stop him from dying of a massive hemorrhage when they did. There was only one thing that might.

The sarcophagus was wired up to work when they were passing through a star, but there was no theoretical reason why Rush could not switch it to operate on Destiny's power reserves. "Fast as you can," he said and sprinted there ahead of them, all the panic and terror balled up and tucked away for now while he worked through the figures.

He'd got them by the time he arrived in the sarcophagus room. Jotted them down on the floor with his chalk to be sure, as he pried up the end panel and attached power from the wall coupling. Checked it. It was good. Good. He opened the cover, punched in the recalculated numbers, and the box flicked to life. Three white lines to prevent panic. Okay, he was ready. It was good.

Running feet pounded in the corridor as they brought the kino sled in. Young on it – he was unconscious now, thank God, because they wrenched the iron railing out of him with a long, sucking, tearing pull that splattered Rush's upturned face with blood. Dunning and Greer got him by the shoulders and legs, lowered him into the box, and it closed.

And then there was peace, and it was the worst thing Rush had ever experienced because it left him space to feel.

He couldn't do this again. Third time around, third bereavement, he couldn't. He _can't._

Well, he was going to have to, wasn't he? If it came to it.

If the universe had a throat he'd go for it right now, close his hands around it and shake it, yelling no. _No, you don't get to do this to me again. You can't, you can't, not Young, not now._

They'd wasted so much time, being enemies, had so little time to be friends. At least he'd told Gloria, told Mandy, that he loved them. Had he told Young? Did Young even know? Or did he still think they were little more than allies who slept together? Why the hell hadn't Rush said it when he had the chance?

"Was he alive when he went in?" That was Greer, asking useful questions like the brave soldier he was.

TJ turned her face away. "There wasn't time to check."

So Young might be dead in there, and they would open the lid and find a perfectly repaired corpse. Wouldn't that be ironic?

The vicious surge of Rush's feelings was trying to suck him under now. They were mute, because he so rarely let them speak, but that just made them more powerful, shuddering in his muscles and making his eyes leak. He thought about trying to conceal the tears from the others, but let them look. Who the fuck cared?

Sometimes he'd almost thought that Young liked him back. That was asking too much, of course, because he _knew_ he was unlovable. He knew that Gloria had been unique in her ability to see past everything that made him Nicholas Rush and to love him anyway. He knew he couldn't expect that ever again.

Rush had thought he'd stoically come to accept it for one of those harsh facts about the world that just had to be taken for what they were. But there had been times when... there'd been a tone of voice, a smile, the way Young had looked at him sometimes with no defenses in his eyes, utterly open and vulnerable, that had made him hope...

He never learned, did he? He'd keep thinking he'd finally managed to grow some callous over that particular wound and then it would open up again just as raw as ever, the fruitless, pointless wish to be loved for who he was.

If anyone still alive could have done it, it would have been Young, who'd seen the worst of him and kept coming back anyway, and now he was...

"Should it be taking this long?" Greer asked into the terrible silence, just as the lights on the sarcophagus slid from white to gold. Rush checked his watch, but the sick seethe in his belly couldn't plunge any further.

"No," he gathered all the regrets back together and swallowed them down. He wasn't big enough to hold them all, but he did it anyway. "It shouldn't."

Under panic and duress, he might have made a mistake in the calculations. Or it might have just been slower because the available power was lower than optimal. There was little point in worrying about any of that right now.

"Open it up then," said Greer, because of course, Rush wouldn't have thought of that himself. Yet, somehow he couldn't bring himself to do it. If Young was dead in there, he didn't want to know.

"Why don't you be my guest."

Greer slapped the casket release with a resentful expression, but if he would keep setting himself up as the most courageous man aboard, he must expect to be called on to exercise it sometimes.

Deep breaths all around as they fortified themselves. Greer opened and folded back the lid, but it wasn't Rush's concern, how the others were taking this. He had too much to feel of his own, and no capacity left over to worry about the reactions of others. Squeezing his eyes shut only for an instant, he opened them again and looked.

There was a pause, as Rush's normally quick mind failed to process what he was seeing.

"What in the hell is this?" Greer breathed by his shoulder, incredulous, but soft. Soft to avoid spooking the young boy who lay looking swamped in Young's cast off black uniform, his hazel eyes rounding rapidly from bewilderment into fear, as he took in their expressions of horror.

"What..." the boy's voice was light and childish, and a look of terror came over his face as he heard it. He tried to hold up one of his hands to examine, but they were lost in his sleeves. Rush thought for a moment that this must be adult Young's mind caught in a mysteriously regressed body, but then the boy's chin crumpled and he wound his shrouded arms around himself and hugged, obviously struggling not to cry. "What happened?"

"Power fail-safes," Rush answered, thinking aloud about this because it was safer than contemplating how the fuck you were supposed to react when your dying lover turned into an eight year old child. "There wasn't enough power stored to rematerialize an entire adult human body. So the software compensated by regressing him to an age when he was smaller."

"Did you know about this?" Dunning was furious, and Greer didn't look too far behind, as if this could have somehow been part of one of Rush's plots. Morons. Had neither of them noticed that everyone was on the same side now?

"Of course I didn't," Rush shouted back. "But I think you'll agree that a living child is better than a dead adult, or did you _want_ him to bleed out on the journey to and from stasis?"

They jerked forward as if to close the distance on him, and he pulled himself up in preparation for a fight. But, "Guys!" TJ's voice snapped firm across the standoff. "Can it be fixed right now?"

Rush's gaze was drawn back to the shaggy haired little sprig sitting in his own blood. The boy's feet had drawn out of his boots, and he had his head down, doggedly attempting to roll the cuffs of his trousers up as the grown-ups yelled at one another over his head. That felt all too horribly familiar to Rush from his own childhood.

"I don't think so," he said, giving his voice the tone of an apology, though the words were nothing of the sort. "If there wasn't enough power to bring him back fully once, putting him through again is likely to only compound the problem."

"Let's move this to the infirmary then." TJ pulled her t-shirt straight as if she was straightening out her mind, then she gave the boy a bright smile. "Can you tell me your name?"

The boy was fighting a losing battle with his trousers - just too much material to tame. He let go of the left leg with both hands and frowned up at her, as if he was half convinced she was laughing at him. "Everett."

"Are you hurt anywhere, Everett?"

"I don't think so." He tried to stand, tripping himself on his clothes as the sleeves of his jacket and shirt fell back around his hands.

Rush didn't second-guess the impulse that made him step up to the side of the box, peel the over-large jacket off the boy's back, shove his sleeves up to his elbow. He grabbed a handful of black shorts, until the waistband was tight around the boy's skinny frame, said "Hold here." When a small hand replaced his own, he got the boy under the armpits and lifted him out of the trousers entirely, swinging him over the side of the sarcophagus until his bare bloodstained feet met the floor.

"Can you stand up?"

He got a smile for his trouble, a broader, more open version of the small smile Young sometimes gave him when they were sharing a private joke. But then Everett's knees buckled and he went down. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I..."

Rush picked him up without thinking and didn't let TJ's officious fingers pry him away. She gave him a look, but just brushed back Everett's over long hair and said "You sure it doesn't hurt anywhere?"

"No. I'm just really wobbly."

"Well," Rush wasn't sure he approved of the good lieutenant's soppy expression. "I'm guessing nearly dying and then being age regressed accounts for a lot of that. We'll take you to the infirmary and check you out, and then you can have a nice sleep..." A pause. Her rather fatuous smile firmed up into a worried frown as she exchanged a glance with Greer. Rush felt the very structure of the hierarchy tremble under his feet as she finished, uncertainly, "Sir."

But Everett didn't hear it. Instead, he tucked his head under Rush's chin, and knotted the hand that wasn't holding up his pants into Rush's collar, like he still remembered very well that Rush's embrace was now his home.

Rush had never been a big one for children. Messy, loud, spiteful things that they were, but he remembered having dreams of being this one, dreams of being quiet and studious, overlooked, undervalued and invisible. It was those dreams that had first opened his eyes to the fact that he had misjudged Young, those dreams which had paved the way for reconciliation and then for love. He owed the boy something for that.

And when all was said and done, this was still Young, whose breath was warm against Rush's throat, whose heartbeat was strong and fast in the sturdy little chest pressed to his own. Young was alive and not dead, which meant that Rush had no more need to be terrified. The very worst had been avoided. Everything else could be fixed.

 

* * *

 

Rush set Everett down on the infirmary cot a little reluctantly. Privately, he had to admit that his own aftershocks of terror and bereavement had not worked their way out of his system yet, that the boy's solid weight against his heart was obscurely comforting.

Not dead, not dead yet, not dead.

He could tell from the sidelong looks he was receiving, from TJ and Greer, from Varro and Cole in the infirmary, that he was giving the game away with this display of affection. But perhaps it was a game he didn't care to play anymore. Let them think what they liked. They usually did.

After a hissed consultation further in the room, TJ returned with a cup of tea and a ration bar, while Cole departed in the direction of the stores.

"All right, Everett?" TJ hunkered down in front of the cot, so that her head was level with his. She unwrapped the ration bar for him and handed it over, with that same charmed smile hiding in the corners of her mouth. "First of all you should eat that and drink something. That should cure the wobbliness. I've sent Cole to see if we have any smaller clothes for you, but in the mean time, this should help."

She leaned forward and worked a large safety pin through the waistband of the boy's shorts. He watched her do it with a solemnity that was all Young. It made the adult version seem rocklike, untouchable, but on the child it was both ridiculous and endearing. Rush stroked his beard, to conceal the fact that he too was wearing an embarrassing smile.

More running footsteps, and then Lt. Scott decelerated to a stop as if he had slammed into a forcefield. "What the hell?"

Everett's shoulders hunched. He lowered his head over his mug of tea and held on to it with both hands, while his mouth set downwards. Rush added the symptoms together and came up with distress. Too many people in the room, too many people standing around watching him, looking at him like he was a problem to be solved. Perhaps not Scott himself, but just too much, too much of everything.

Rush knew what that felt like too. Adults had largely ignored him as he was growing up, and he'd preferred it that way. All of them stupid and self-centered and profoundly unempathetic towards his state of sharp-eyed vulnerability. A pack of them around you like this was enough to unsettle anyone.

Scott rounded on him, as though this was his doing. "Can this be fixed?"

"I'm certain it can." He kept the hostility level down because he could feel his own inner child flinch at the thought of raised voices and blows. "But not until the next recharge, and even then just putting him back in the sarcophagus won't be enough."

TJ looked at him from where she was now shining a penlight into Everett's eyes. "I thought you said--"

"He's perfectly healthy, yes?"

She pressed a stethoscope to the boy's back and listened to his heart and lungs, before nodding. "He certainly seems to be."

"Well then. You put a perfectly healthy boy in the sarcophagus and you'll get a perfectly healthy boy back out." Rush wished people would do the thinking for themselves, sometimes, but it seemed too much to ask. "In order to re-age him to his correct form, I'll need to set up new parameters in the control software."

"How long--" Scott began, with an odd sort of hungry look in his eyes, clearly aware that Everett had still not looked at him, and hurt by that, maybe.

"Well, I don't know. I won't know how complex a task it will be until I've looked, but it's not an overnight job, and I'll need Chloe and Eli to check the figures for me."

Everett finished his tea, put the mug carefully down and attempted to slide off the bed. "I'm going to sleep now."

But TJ stopped him with a hand in the centre of the chest. "Everett? How are you feeling in your mind? Are you confused? What do you remember?"

Everett rubbed one eye and then the other with his knuckles, keeping his face turned away from Scott and Greer. There was a grayish tinge to his face and dark circles under his eyes. "I am... It is a bit muddled. It all hurt. It hurt so much! I think I was dying? Then someone put me in the box, and it went wrong and now I'm well again, but I'm little."

"Okay, you've got a reasonably good grasp on things, it sounds like." TJ's smile was back, smoothly encouraging. "Do you know who I am?"

"Yes."

"And Lieutenant Scott?"

"Yes."

"Dr. Rush will be able to put you back to normal soon, but I think Lieutenant Scott should be in charge until then, don't you?"

Everett made another attempt to get down, managed to stay on his feet this time, rubbing his fist into his right eye and yawning. There was a pause, in which all the adults knew it was going to happen whether he agreed or not and then, surprisingly, Everett looked up at Rush for guidance. Rush raised his eyebrows to indicate that it couldn't be helped and nodded.

"Okay." Everett angled himself so that his back was to Scott and Greer and Dunning. He flicked a pleading look up at TJ. "And now I'm going to bed."

"I think you should stay here where I can keep an eye on you to make sure you're all right," she said, apologetic but firm. "You've been through a massively stressful experience, physically and mentally, and I would feel happiest if you were kept under observation. At least tonight."

Everett held out a hand to Rush, apparently in total confidence that it would be taken. Rush closed his fingers around the small hand with a hot spike of triumph, because it was him the boy turned to. Not Scott, not TJ, _him_. Maybe Young didn't yet love him, might never love him, but this unmixed confidence felt like it came close.

"Everyone's _staring_ at me."

"I'm sorry," said TJ and backed off a little. "This is strange for us too. Matt, could you...?"

Scott put his uninvited hand on Rush's elbow, causing a creeping sensation that twitched his skin. "Is he going to be ok?"

Rush sighed. For the third time. "Yes, yes, of course." And finally they trooped away, Greer trying and failing to catch Everett's eye as he went.

Huddled into himself like a wet bird in a rainstorm, Everett put his free palm over his eyes, while his other hand squeezed Rush's fingers strangling tight. "I want to go to my room."

"Let me take him," Rush found himself volunteering. "I can sit on the couch while he sleeps easily enough. Even make a start on those calculations."

"That would be... kind of you." From TJ's shock you would think Rush had never done a kind thing in his life. The implication might have been insulting if he'd given a toss.

"Well, I can't sleep in this place either. Who could?"

He didn't say any more until they were in the Colonel's quarters, with the door locked behind them. Then he folded down the bedclothes that Young had made up neatly this morning, as if for an inspection, and his own emotions came sweeping out of the slick softness of the satin and surprised him. He felt, maybe not bereaved, but certainly unsettled, faintly abandoned, as though he had been left unexpectedly alone.

When he patted the bed, Everett climbed in and threw himself down there like he was an unwanted parcel, curled up tight, fists knotted in his shirt and his eyes screwed shut. Rush had no idea how you dealt with this - the students he was used to were Eli's age, and he found their immaturity wearing - but he thought it was safe enough to tuck the covers tight around the boy's small shoulders and put a hand on his curly head.

"What are you so miserable about then?"

Everett uncurled a little. "You don't like me anymore."

Oh no, but that was sweet. Surprising that it would matter much to him at all. "Wee man," he said, stroking Everett's hair, "I'm here aren't I?"

A murmur, heavy with sleep.

"What was that?"

"And I'm letting everyone down."

He couldn't think of a response, but fortunately the boy was already asleep and he didn't need to. He stayed kneeling by the edge of the bed for what felt like a long while, the comforter warm against his torso and the sound of Everett breathing like a distant sea, hypnotic, comforting, inaccessible.

It was ridiculous to miss Young when Young was right here, but he did. And he still hadn't said the words.

Hauling himself creakily to his feet, he relocated to the couch, worked for an unmeasured time on the maths he needed to restore Young's lost forty years. The ship's ambient temperature was always slightly too warm, and the lighting slightly too dim, and the sound of Everett breathing was a womb-noise in the back of his mind.

Later, his back ached with hunching over notebooks on the table, so he stretched out on the couch where he could pretend to be drawing complex formulae on the ceiling in chalk, and he closed his eyes to better picture them.

A scuffed footstep brought him awake with momentary panic. He turned, expecting glowing eyes and blue transparent skin, legs with elbows. But it was only Everett, swathed in a sheet, dragging the comforter behind him as he pulled the bedding over to Rush.

"You shouldn't," said Rush, welcoming the sharp pain of a little knee being driven into his thigh as Everett climbed up onto the sofa on top of him. "We shouldn't..." Because this was awkward, wasn't it? The last time they'd done this, it certainly hadn't been to sleep.

"We do it all the time." Everett's mouth firmed into a mulish, stubborn line, but there was a hint of tremble about the chin that stopped Rush from simply picking him up and depositing him straight back in bed. "I want a hug. I was dreaming about bombs and I'm scared."

Oh, that got Rush by the heart and twisted. And why not, anyway? He smoothed the blankets out over them both and reached up to settle the boy. Everett tucked his head under Rush's chin, put one hand in his beard and the other in his collar and relaxed, thorough and limp on top of him. Rush linked his arms around the boy's back and held on. Another shock of joy went through him, less intense now but no less sweet than he had been feeling all day. Not dead. Still not dead.

"How much do you remember about us?" He asked. He meant 'exactly how inappropriate is this?'

Everett raised his head briefly. Guileless eyes met his. "I remember that I love you."

Of course Rush couldn't believe that. It was merely Young's complicated adult sentiments translated through the mind of a child, but the fierce wave of yearning that came with it anyway felt like being unmade.

"Do you remember that I love you too?" he said, and it was surprisingly easy to do so, in this nest of warmth and innocence regained.

"Mm hm." Everett put his head back down and nodded sleepily against Rush's throat. "But I only want to do the kind of cuddling where you keep your clothes on."

By this stage it was so unexpected Rush had to laugh. "Right," he managed after a struggle with his voice. That certainly answered some questions he'd been having about how much of Young's memory was intact. "Yes. Well, the other sort is only really for grown-ups."

"I'm _never_ going to want to do that," said Everett, and it was so Young - so deeply earnest and yet so totally wrong - that Rush felt, with equal accuracy, that everything was fine now. Everything was perfect.

"Go to sleep, wee man. No one's going to do anything you don't want to do. Not while I'm around."


	2. Chapter 2

Everett thought he had been very patient, under the circumstances. When Rush had left him in Chloe's care this morning, he hadn't argued. He knew Rush had work to do. Rush was always busy, and now he had to fix Everett on top of all his other duties. So Everett had smiled back when Chloe had grinned at him and promised that they would 'have fun' together, and he'd really tried not to watch Rush walk away. Maybe he'd peeked a little, though, just for reassurance, because Rush was the one person who made him feel at ease now that Everett was little. Rush didn't stare at him like he was strange or broken or, even worse, something fascinating. Everett didn't even mind Rush calling him a 'wee man,' although he was pretty sure he'd never done that before. It was different with everyone else. He could sense that they were all either uncomfortable around him or amused by him, and he wasn't sure which reaction he disliked more. And they still stared at him. He was really tired of all the staring. Didn't they know it was rude?

It was Chloe who had suggested that they play chess together. Everett had thought that was a good idea, at least until they started playing. Then he quickly grew frustrated, because it was hard to focus on the whole board at the same time, and Chloe kept doing things that he had not planned for. He knew he used to be better at this, and that knowledge ruined his fun.

It was worse because he was distracted. Everything was so topsy turvy now that he was half convinced that any moment, his mom would pop into the room, home after a long day at work, and tell him to come into the kitchen so they could talk while she made dinner. That was how it was supposed to be when he was this young  It didn't matter that he knew he'd never see her again. His adult memories of mourning her were less clear than those of his childhood, when she had always been the center of his little universe.

So when Chloe asked him if he would like to play another game, he wanted to tell her "no." No, he didn't want to play anymore games. No, he didn't want to be babysat while waiting for a mother who wasn't coming. No, he didn't want to be useless and confused so that other people had to do his job for him. No, he didn't want to be around anyone right now. _No_.

But instead of trying to put all those unhappy, nebulous feelings into words, Everett asked to play hide-and-seek. Chloe agreed readily, and for a little while it was even fun. Destiny had lots of good hiding places, even within the relatively small area where Chloe said they could play. But eventually Everett's yearning for quiet and solitude overcame his enjoyment of the game, and he slipped away while Chloe was counting. He darted through the halls as quickly and quietly as he could, making use of a few short cuts and rarely-frequented corridors that Rush had shown him to avoid being seen.

He ended up in Rush's math corridor almost by instinct. It was the closest thing to a library that could be found on Destiny, and libraries had always been some of Everett's favorite refuges. The corridor was a quiet space devoted to creativity and study, and there was something soothing about the familiar sight of Rush's scrawl across the walls. Everett traced over a few numbers with his fingers, and then absently wiped streaks of chalk over the workout shorts and t-shirt that someone had found for him to wear (women's extra small, both of them, and the shorts still had to be secured with a safety pin). His bare feet made no sound on the deck plating as he made his way down the long passage.

There was a large section of wall that had recently been wiped clean of the calculations that used to cover it. A few broken pieces of chalk lay on the floor beneath it, and Everett eagerly snatched one up. He surveyed the bare wall with a growing smile at all the possibilities it contained. Then he set to work filling in that blank canvas with all his usual deliberate care.

Rush found him there some time later, putting the final touches on a drawing of Telford. Everett was not quite happy with it. Telford's mouth hung open and his brows were heavily overdrawn in an exaggerated grimace, giving the impression that he was mid-tirade. It wasn't quite right. Not quite _Telford_ enough to be satisfying in its absurdity.

"Oh, that's not bad," Rush commented, startling Everett into dropping his chalk.

"I didn't know you were there!" Everett said, pushing unruly curls from his eyes with chalky hands and turning to frown accusingly at Rush.

Rush's expression was hard to read. His lips were quirked up at the corners, but not enough to be considered a smile. Everett wondered for a moment if Rush was mad at him for drawing on his walls. But then he noticed Rush's eyes. They were narrowed slightly, but crinkled at the corners and gleaming with appreciative mirth. "No," Rush said softly, "you were too engrossed in your art for that."

"It's not very good," Everett sighed discontentedly. "His face isn't," he waved vaguely at the wall, "like that."

Rush knelt down to his level and squinted at the picture with gratifying attention. Then he asked, "May I?" and held his hand out for the chalk. Young picked it up gave it to him, curious to see what he would do with it.

Very little, as it turned out. With only a few deft strokes of chalk across the wall, Rush gave Telford's brows that little bit of a quirk that changed them from merely angry to slightly smug, and he turned the open, shouting mouth into a wide sneer. That was all it took. It was unmistakably Telford.

Everett giggled.

"Yes, I think that will do," Rush said, smiling with approval at their joint handiwork. He tilted his head toward Everett, eyes twinkling.

Everett grinned back, feeling like Rush's partner in crime and loving it. It had never been like this before when he was this little. There hadn't been anyone to draw silly pictures with him and make fun of the people that annoyed him. His doodles of mean teachers and stuck up smart kids never made it out of his bedroom, and when his mom saw them, even she would say, "Those aren't very nice."

One really couldn't be nice all the time, but he had learned to keep the not-nice moments private.

Rush's attention had turned from the picture of Telford to a few of Everett's other sketches. He was examining a drawing of Chloe, and his smile had turned fond.

"Will you fix that one too?" Everett asked hopefully.

"It doesn't need to be fixed," Rush assured him. "It's Chloe, yes?  I think it's perfect."

Warmth swelled with Everett's small chest and bloomed in his cheeks as he beamed at Rush. _Perfect_. He remembered enough to know that wasn't a word Rush used often. Everett looked back at the picture, seeing it with new eyes. He _had_ tried his very best on it, because he liked Chloe, even though he prefered not to be babysat by her. Maybe it _was_ pretty good. He was proud of how he had drawn her hair, at least.

"And who is this?" Rush had moved on the picture beside Chloe's. It was of another woman, this one with long, spiraling curls instead of Chloe's subtler waves.

Everett bit his lip and did not answer immediately. It had been silly to draw that picture, maybe. But he had started by drawing people that he liked, and so he'd had to include her. He just had to. And then he had felt a little sniffly, so he drew Telford to relieve his feelings. It had worked up until now, but the sadness was coming back.

"My mom," he murmured.

"Your mum? Oh, she's lovely," Rush said, but there was a slight crease between his brows now as he glanced between the picture and Everett. He opened his mouth to say something, hesitated, and then asked, "You haven't mentioned her before, I think."

Everett slipped his hands into the pockets of his oversized shorts and glanced at the floor as if he'd just found something very interesting down there. "She's um… she's wherever Gloria is."

He looked up at Rush through his lashes to see how he had taken that. Rush didn't look terribly surprised, but the crease between his brows had become a furrow. He reached out toward Everett and pulled him closer to his side. "I'm sorry."

Everett leaned into Rush and felt the sorrow begin to slowly ebb away again. This was nice. When he was near Rush, everything made a little bit more sense to him. His memories were less muddy, and he was less afraid. Because he wasn't a lonely little boy anymore. He had Rush.

"It happened when I was big. A long time ago," he explained as best he could. "But sometimes I forget now because I'm little again."

Rush's grip tightened on him briefly, and he dropped his chalk so he'd have a free hand with which to stroke Everett's curls. "That must be confusing," he said softly.

"It's better when you're here."

"Yeah?" Rush seemed slightly surprised by that. His brows went up, and then he smiled in just the way that Everett liked best, like there were bright, shiny stars in the darkness of his eyes.

Everett nodded, and then he pointed shyly at the first picture he had drawn. It was right next to the drawing of his mom, and now that he looked at it, he liked it less than he had at first. It, like the one of Telford, was missing something.

"Is that…" Rush paused, as if reluctant to make a guess that would turn out to be incorrect.

"It's you," Young said, pulling out of Rush's embrace and retrieving the chalk, "but I forgot your beard!" With a bit of rapid scribbling, he gave the face a handsome, full beard. "There!"

"Oh, yes," Rush approved. "That's me all right. It was the hair that confused me at first. I thought it might be Camile."

Everett giggled again. "Your hair is so long!" he pointed out.

"You like it that way," Rush said, giving Everett's side a light poke. "Do you remember that?"

"Yes, and you like my hair. You like to pull it."

Rush verified this by reaching out and giving one of Everett's curls a tug. "True."

Everett leaned back into the tug, letting Rush catch him and support his weight as he surveyed the wall. There was still enough blank space left for one more picture, and he thought he knew exactly who they should draw.

"Right there," he said, pointing. "McKay."

Behind him, Rush huffed with amusement. "Oh, I don't know. You don't think he's suffered enough?"

"Nope!" Young said with conviction.

"You're probably right. Give me the chalk."

 

* * *

 

"He's unavailable right now, David, so you can bring your concerns to me."

Every single person on Destiny, it seemed, was a full time bullshit merchant these days. Telford brushed down Corporal Marsden's uniform and drew himself up to his full height. "What does 'unavailable' mean on a spaceship? Is he ill? Is he dead? Homeworld Command is concerned by the fact that he's missed two scheduled report-ins and one strategic overview meeting, and if there is no good excuse, well... it reflects badly on him."

Camile looked shifty. Truthfully, Camile's small smile looked like something you'd see on a Buddha, gently curving, detached from the world, faintly pitying of his crass ill manners, but on Camile that added up to shifty.

Telford's internal morass seethed with something complicated. These days he tried to ignore his feelings altogether and concentrate on the job in hand. They were too convoluted, too obscured for him to make sense of them. Half of them he didn't even know if they were his own, or hauntings left over from his time in the Lucian alliance. Honestly, he didn't like to look. But he still thought his reaction was something like concern.

Camile was clearly hiding something, something too embarrassing to just come out and say.

"He has... a medical condition, which means he's currently unable to report for duty."

Medical condition? Right. Passed out drunk in his cabin? Hung over? Got into a fight and got his head kicked in? It was definitely concern, and it was also guilt. Guilt like the kind of quicksand you didn't see until you'd stepped in it and had to break your back pulling out, because he was pretty sure that the fucking terrible mess that currently called itself Everett Young was due to him.

Young had been solid before the attack on P2S-569. Never a charismatic, wise-cracking hero type, but dependable, unflappable, and with a flare for getting the best out of his people that only became apparent over time. He'd been the kind of officer it made sense to pick for a project like this.

And then Telford had let him get bombed out and captured, had made him live through a kind of hell that had obviously shattered him on some primal level - and yes, he remembers Sanchez, who bled to death in Young's arms. And yes, he can picture what that must have been like from a thousand incidents of his own. Though it must have been worse for Young than it ever was for him. Young had always been sentimental, had always cared too much.

All that agony and regret. Blood on his hands and helplessness.

It wasn't Telford's fault. He had not been himself. He was a victim too. And yes, he told himself that about once every three minutes, but it never stuck.

Young had been his friend and if he was still failing to pull himself into any kind of decent order, that was at least partially a responsibility that Telford chose to bear.

Because maybe he should have fought harder. Because he'd still done all those things even if he'd never meant to. And now all he could do was to try to reassemble all the pieces of everything he'd broken, and hope that someday the need to be repeatedly forgiven would stop tasting like humiliation and acid in his mouth.

"What kind of a medical condition?"

"Ah... " Camile hesitated again. Two years ago she'd have gone for Young's throat with relish. Now, he had the odd feeling that she was protecting him. Good team building skills, right? "He was badly injured and Doctor Rush--"

Rush! Wasn't it always Rush?

"Felt that the only way to save his life was to put him in the sarcophagus that we recently discovered. There wasn't enough power and--"

"Camile, spit it out. Is he dead?"

She resisted a moment more, and then her braced shoulders slumped. Her sphinx like smile straightened out into something more genuine. "Perhaps you ought to see for yourself. But don't frighten him, David. I know how you can be."

"Frighten him?"

"You'll see."

He expected to be taken to the infirmary, but Camile lifted her radio to her lips. "Chloe? Is Everett with you?"

"He got away from me again."

 _Brain damaged?_ Telford thought, though the girl's amusement seemed kind of callous, if that was the case.

"I gave him a radio, but he's not answering me. I'm sure we all know who he picked that up from. I'm going to go check the math corridor now, but he was talking about kino sleds, so Eli might have seen him."

Under Young's haphazard management, Destiny's hybrid military and civilian society had developed into something Telford felt stretched the limits of appropriate behavior until they tore, and this was getting ridiculous. He snatched the radio out of Camile's hand and held the toggle down with unnecessary force. "Young? It's Telford. I don't know what the hell you're playing at, but I need to speak to you immediately. I'll be in briefing room 4."

He set off at a brisk pace, irritated at Camile jogging to keep up. "I don't need an escort, Camile."

She slowed him down with a hand on his elbow, always so rational and so brave. "No, but I think perhaps Everett does."

They reached the briefing room - in actuality only a smaller set of quarters in the secondary living area. Camile composed herself on the one chair, and Telford paced, feeling frustrated and caged, unsure of himself and angry about it. He had to check his watch twice before the door lock hissed and the obstructive bastard finally deigned to come in.

Light footsteps. Telford had to revise his eye-level down, and when he finally worked out what he was seeing he took an involuntary step away. Long ago, when they were in the AETC together they'd visited Young's mother. A birthday, he thought, there had certainly been lots of cooking, and they'd both been shiny with expectations of future glory. Young's mom had insisted on dragging out the photo album, so Telford recognized this child with a stab of uncomfortable nostalgia around the heart.

Those days were lost, and nothing would ever bring them back.

"Rush is already working on the problem of how to stay alive until the end of the mission, I see," he said. "I thought you had more sense than to be his guinea pig, but after you came down on his side in that body-swapping thing, I should have guessed."

The boy scowled. "He saved my life."

"Right," Telford scoffed. "Because he's never engineered a situation before that makes it look like you're going to die if you don't do what he wants."

The little moppet was nowhere near as good at concealing his emotions as grown up Young. The scowl turned into full blown anger, blazing eyes, clenched fists and all. "Well you tried to take my ship!"

"It's not _your_ ship, Everett. It was _my_ mission. You're the one who took it from me. This whole time I've only been trying to help you. You needed psychiatric help before this, and now you need a fucking nanny."

Abruptly, some watchful part of Telford's brain told him that having an embarrassing shouting match with a nine year old was perhaps not the best advertisement of his own stability, but by that time it was too late.

"If I had one I bet you'd try to take her too."

You see, people said they'd forgiven you, but they begrudged you anyway. You had to pretend everything was fine again while underneath you knew they were going to look down on you for the rest of their lives.  
  
Telford lunged forward, not sure what exactly he was going to do, but whatever it was involved knotting his hand in the boy's collar and dragging him off balance, maybe shaking him some, teaching him not to speak to his elders like that.  
  
He got a handful of cloth, but that was where it started to go wrong. Everett just kicked him hard in the shin and raised his arms so that the over large t-shirt slid straight off. Leaving it hanging limp as a gecko's tail in Telford's grasp, the boy raced for the door.   
  
Camile made a grab for him but wasn't quick enough. Furious and embarrassed, Telford shouldered her aside and went after the little punk.  
  
Past the marine's rec room, with Camile trailing behind him, Baras, Michaels and Dunning coming out in his wake as he slid around the intersection that connected the observation deck to the apple core. He had second thoughts as he followed the light drumming of feet into a section of the ship he'd not ventured into before. He had marines to do this. He should make a sweep, have the boy dragged in front of him by a military escort, except that now there was the principle of the thing to consider. This was between them, personal.   
  
He had kept the beating Young had given him secret, because they were friends. If he gave the little snot the back of his hand right now for his disrespect, Everett would keep that to himself too, he was sure.  
  
Dimmer corridor lights here. Some of the doors were stalled half open, half shut. The boy was panting now - the distance they'd covered would be twice as far for him with his short legs. He darted a glance over his shoulder, his gait faltering, and his eyes widened at the sight of Telford closing in.   
  
A door ahead of him stood barely open, a stripe of pitch black far too narrow for Telford to pass through. With a grin of triumph, the boy eeled through the gap and disappeared inside. Gone to ground.  
  
"You think that's going to stop me?" Telford slammed a hand on the fitfully glowing controls. A judder went through the frame of the door and he felt it give, roll back half an inch. A grinding noise overhead. He got his arm and shoulder into the gap and pushed with all his might.  
  
Something was holding it back, like a spring on a library door. He got a foot into the gap and brought the power of his legs to bear.   
  
Then it all happened at once. There was a snap above him. The door mechanism engaged and it rolled back. He dived through, and as he did so a small contraption that had been built out from the space, propped by an unseen black-painted length of scrap metal wedged into the gap, fell in pieces around him. Something white followed it, plummeting from above.  
  
He had time to put up an arm to shield his head before a white plastic waste bin of the kind supplied for the kitchens hit him on the wrist and upturned, spilling purple potato peelings and fat, wet, mouldy tomatoes all over his head. Rancid liquor ran through his hair and down the back of his fatigues, the cold splash of it flash freezing his anger instantly from boiling to chill.  
  
Light from the doorway showed an enormous three tiered room, stacked with Ancient crates and boxes, that receded out of the light in every direction. The number of hiding places for a small boy were infinite. And okay, he'd tried to do this like friends, but okay, if that was how Young wanted to play it, bringing out the big guns it was.  
  
He straightened his jacket, turned to find Camile in the doorway, the marines some distance behind. Camile's face was so locked solid into a mask of solemnity he could find nothing to attack. The marines turned away from his glare as if hit in the chest with the pulse from a staff weapon. But he was sure he heard them laugh as they double timed away.  
  
"David," Camile folded her lips under her teeth as she reached up to flick a piece of peel off his shoulder. "I'm so sorry. As far as we can tell, while he retains his memories, he's processing them through the mind of an eight year old."  
  
"An eight year old with discipline problems." Telford ran his hands through this body's hair, dislodging wet vegetables. He felt cold and settled and no longer confused.   
  
"I had no idea - he's been very quiet until now." Camile's strained expression of trying to swallow down a smile was finally easing into concern. It was a good sign. Let her remember who she was dealing with.  
  
"Quiet or not, it's clear you need me here. I'm going to report the situation as it stands to O'Neill and we will handle it. As the IOA representative I will of course keep you informed of what we decide. But when I get back, I will be having words with you and with Lt. Scott about what the hell you were thinking, concealing this from HQ."  
  
He pulled his host's radio from his waistband, raised it. "You people badly need some order on this ship, and I'm going to be back to bring it."  
  
"Wait, David..." she started, finally looking like she was taking him seriously. Good. It was about time they all learned to do the same.  
  
"Cut the connection," and he was gone.

 

* * *

 

Greer stood in the hallway outside the colonel's door, his hand hovering above the door release. Officially, he was supposed to take up a position outside the door to make sure no one entered or left these quarters, but that was bullshit. Just because Lieutenant Scott had, somewhat absurdly, declared that his pint-sized commanding officer was ‘grounded,' it didn't mean that Greer was going to treat the colonel like a goddamn prisoner. So Colonel Young - _Everett_ \- had dumped some kitchen waste on Telford's head? He deserved congratulations for that, not a time out.

Orders were orders, but Greer could guard Everett just as well from within his quarters as he could from the corridor. Decided on this, he opened the door.

Everett was curled up into a tight mound of childish fury and dejection on the bed. He looked so little and so indignant that Greer had to swallow a laugh and turn it into a cough instead. Everett looked up, scowling and ready to defend himself to whichever of his persecutors happened to be in the doorway, but at sight of Greer, his face relaxed. "Oh, it's you," he said.

"It's me." Greer closed the door behind him and walked over to sit on the bed beside him. "You holding up okay, Colonel?"

The boy uncurled himself further and peered curiously up at Greer. He looked startled and hopeful, and there was a flicker of something in his eyes, a certain sharpness, that made him look a bit more like his adult self. "No one calls me that anymore," he pointed out.

"Well, it's still true, isn't it?"

Everett nibbled his lower lip and averted his eyes downward. He plucked restlessly at the bed covers. "I guess. But I'm too little now. Scott can tell me what to do, and I don't like it. He sent me to my room!" He looked up again, hazel eyes wide and affronted.

"Yeah, I heard," Greer chuckled, unable to resist that appealing gaze. "I also heard you pulled a prank on Telford. Nice job."

That brought out a mischievous look on the boy's face, and he seemed to forget his anger all at once. He bounced up on his knees and straightened, eager to tell his audience about his own cleverness. "I did it all by myself. I had to be so quiet when I took the trash from the kitchen, but no one saw me. There was so much to carry, so I put it on a kino sled and took it to the door and set it all up. I had to stand on the kino sled and that was fun." He beamed up at Greer.

Greer thought about this little squirt balancing in midair on top of a kino sled and felt a momentary pang of discomfort. Maybe Scott was overreacting a bit about Everett's prank, but there was no question that the colonel _did_ need looking after right now. He had all of his usual stubbornness and bravery mixed with a dose of childish recklessness that could get him hurt or worse in an un-child-proofed environment like Destiny.

"Did you know Telford was due to visit today?" Greer asked, pushing aside that hint of concern. Everett had come out of his adventure unscathed and Telford had gotten what he deserved. Everything was under control, for now.

"No." Everett shook his head, his face falling again as he thought of something unpleasant. "I did it for Morrison, because he's mean and he keeps laughing at me."

"Oh he does, does he?" Greer asked, resolving to have a little chat with Morrison.

"Yeah. Some of the others do too," the boy sighed fretfully. "They wouldn't do that if I was still big. They use to do what I told them, and if they didn't, I could _make_ them." He scrubbed a small hand over his tousled dark curls as if he was trying to enhance the memories, to become that person he had been when he had an adult brain to work with. Greer, who had already watched his commander struggle in a body that did not belong to him not too long ago, felt distinctly uncomfortable watching this display.

Damn, this was… this was really hard on the kid. Sure, he was cute and funny and apparently full of mischief, but he was _Colonel Young_ , and he knew it. He knew he was supposed to be more than this. Greer couldn't imagine how frustrating that must be for him. Of _course_ he was acting out, making trouble. Greer would too, in his place.

"You can make them all regret it after Rush fixes you," he suggested, since it seemed unwise to encourage Everett to get his revenge before that time. He'd be chuckling over Telford dripping with curdled protein soup and potato peelings for weeks, but he still didn't like the thought of the miniature colonel risking life and limb to pull it off.

"I wish Rush was here now," Everett grumbled.

Greer remembered the pale agony on Rush's face in the sarcophagus room while they had all waited to see whether the colonel would come out of the box alive or dead. He also recalled the way Rush had looked with the boy in his arms, holding him close like he never meant to let him go again.

"You two still getting along pretty well?" Greer ventured to ask, wondering if it was unethical to pump his commander for information about his personal relationships when he was too young to be discreet.

Everett's face lit up as he nodded, shedding all his ill humor in an instant. His eyes were bright and brimming with sincerity as he leaned close and uttered in a stage whisper, "I love him very much." He spread his skinny arms wide to demonstrate the extent of his devotion. " _This_ much."

Greer stared down at him, frozen in place by that happy, wide-eyed, innocent gaze. Oh. That was a bit more serious than he'd been expecting. Sure, it could be that Everett was just a bit confused about how he'd felt about Rush as an adult, but on the other hand, the image of Rush holding Everett's small hand in the infirmary and looking at him as if he was a precious gift from heaven kept flashing through Greer's mind. Jesus. It was probably true, and the feeling was probably mutual.

How had it _happened_ , though, to Rush and Young, of all people? Somehow, Greer didn't think this was a natural reaction to getting bodyswapped with someone for three weeks. Still, that must have been when they fell for each other. No one could have mistaken the friendship that sprang up between the two men after that whole misadventure. More than friendship, apparently.

Everett was beginning to look nervous at Greer's unresponsiveness. He lowered his arms slowly, and his lower lip trembled.

Greer hastily pulled himself together. "That much, huh?" he said encouragingly. "That's a lot."

That brought back the warmth to Everett's expression. He grinned up at Greer, happy to be taken seriously. "Yeah, it is."

"And how ‘bout Rush. Does he love you back?"

"Uh huh. He said so. Twice."

"Twice?"

"Well," the boy amended, "one and a half times."

"I figure once is enough," Greer commented, amused. He wondered what half of an ‘I love you' sounded like. Probably something obscure and open to several interpretations. Rush was a master of that ambiguous shit.

"Is he working on fixing me right now?" Everett asked.

"Rush? Sure he is," said Greer, who in fact had no clue what Rush was working on at the moment.

But apparently he'd said the right thing, because Everett sighed and nodded like he was bravely undertaking a monumentally difficult task. "Okay," he said, "I'll wait for him. Maybe he'll be finished soon and then he'll come see me."

Greer turned his head to hide his smile and said, "I think I'll wait here too, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind," Everett said with solemn magnanimity.

"Thanks." Greer settled more comfortably on the bed, prepared to make the most of this peculiar bit of guard duty. "So, tell me what Telford looked like with all that trash on his head."

With a return of his endearing impishness, Everett launched into a gleeful description of Telford's humiliation.


	3. Chapter 3

Everett tugged again at the harness of thick rope that he had meticulously tied around his stolen kino sled. His intricate network of knots and loops held fast. He tried sliding it, shifting it, destabilizing it in a number of ways, but he had done his work well - the harness didn’t budge. Perfect. He tucked his kino remote under one arm and scrambled up on the sled, then slid his legs through the loops he’d made for that purpose. He tied the two ends of rope securely around his middle and then twisted and wriggled to see if they would come loose. No, it seemed okay. He wouldn’t fall off. Time for a test flight.

At this moment, he was supposed to be on his bed having another time out. Scott had gotten angry at him that morning for trying to borrow a shuttle, and Everett was still annoyed over it. He wasn’t going to _hurt_ the shuttle, and he was planning to bring it _back._ He knew how to fly it better than anyone, except maybe Scott himself. He was a colonel in the Air Force, he was on a _spaceship_ , and no one would let him fly anything! They all wanted him to do boring kid things instead, but he was tired of being a kid. He wanted to fly.

Hence his experiment with the kino sled. It wasn’t quite as awesome as a shuttle, but he knew that kinos could move pretty fast, so he might be able to have a bit of fun with them. He clutched the kino remote in both small hands and started steering the sled forward.

He started slow. The kinos were warming up, and he was getting used to splitting his attention between the remote in his hands and the corridor stretching out ahead of him. But once he felt confident that he could steer without looking down at the remote, he kicked up the speed. The kinos emitted little buzzing sounds as their little motors revved up, and then he was gliding down the hall fast enough to set his curls bobbing around his head. But that still wasn’t fast enough, oh no. He wanted to fly! So he pushed the kinos as hard as he could go, until he was speeding ahead at a dizzying pace.

He maneuvered around a turn in the corridor with no room to spare, hooting with enjoyment at his close call. There were two airmen ahead, both staring at him like they could not believe their eyes. He whipped past with a wild cry, barely avoiding a collision.

The next person he encountered wasn’t as lucky. The kino sled clipped Mackie’s shoulder as it went past, knocking him flat. Everett didn’t even have time to check whether the man was okay. He had to concentrate on steering past Eli, who was shouting Everett’s name between peals of laughter. Encouraged by Eli’s amusement, Everett let out another whoop and banked hard to one side as he came around another corner.

He hadn’t started this joyride with any particular destination in mind, but as he flew through the halls as fast as the kinos would carry him, he realized exactly where he was going. To the control interface room. To _Rush_.

An angry shout from somewhere behind Everett alerted him to the fact that Scott had seen him. _Good_. Let him see Everett having a good time in spite of all his meddling. Let him see how clever Everett could be, turning a glorified stretcher into a racing skimmer. Let him see--

In his distraction, Everett inadvertently allowed the kino sled to veer slightly to one side. The corner of the sled snagged against a door frame, sending it spinning around and around and ricocheting off the walls until Everett finally managed to get it under control again. By that time, he was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down his face. He didn’t know when he’d ever had this much fun before. Definitely not for years and years. He couldn’t wait to share it with Rush.

 

* * *

 

So much shouting in the corridors. Could the people on this ship _never shut up_? Rush raised his head from poring over lines of code on the monitor and pinched the bridge of his nose, blinking  in a vain attempt to get his eyes to focus again. The time stamp in the corner of the screen said he had been at this now for sixteen hours without a break, and perhaps that was stretching the limits of productivity.

Anyway, how could anyone work with that racket going on? That was certainly Eli's voice, high with glee, and Scott's, distant behind it, scolding. Curious, he leaned out of the CI room door in time almost to be decapitated by a kino sledge flying at a pace of which he'd never imagined one capable.

Tiredness dissipating instantly at the massive jolt of adrenaline, he ducked and watched as it banked like a starfighter around the next intersection and flew back, shedding velocity, to stop just outside his door.

Rush's little imp sat atop the device, looking wind tousled and massively pleased with himself, grinning like a loon. He was, Rush noticed with approval, securely tied on by a harness that was a good piece of engineering for an eight year old. It said something about Young's steadiness that he had clearly thought through the need for a harness and its best design before going on this joy ride. But that part of Young's character Rush had known already.

The part he hadn't known was this joyous, reckless thing that hurtled down corridors with abandon. He answered Everett's grin with a chuckle that turned into a full bodied laugh, as he felt the weight of his own years slip, just a tad, from his back. "My," he said, once he could gasp it out, "you're quite the hellion. I did not know you had it in you."

"Did you see? Did you see how fast I was going?" Everett undid the pretty competent hitch knot with which he had tied himself on, and got up to his knees on the floating platform.

The boy had other people to tell him sensible things. Far too many other people, to tell the truth. Rush was just uncomplicatedly glad that for once Everett did not look crushed by anything at all. "I did! That's a marvelous craft you have there. I had no idea they could go so fast. Was that maximum speed or do you think they have more in them?"

Floating as he was waist height off the ground, Everett was at a convenient level to hug. Rush pulled him close and shared the heart racing excitement that still trembled through his frame. But when he went to lift the boy down, Everett pushed him away. "No, I'm as tall as you are now. I'm going to stay here."

"Good point," he agreed, quite glad himself not to have to constantly be looking down. "So, speed?"

Everett's bright eyed glee calmed into a pondering look. He was obviously giving this serious thought. "The turns in the corridors are very tight. I took it as fast as I thought I could, but I think I could have gone faster someplace with more curves."

Rush pushed back his hair with both hands and then saved his work. He'd come to a natural stop anyway. Why not take a break and enjoy himself for once?

"I've an idea." He grinned conspiratorially at the child while simultaneously feeling just a little proud of his apparent parenting skills. Because this would be educational as well as amusing. "Do you remember how to operate a console?"  
  
"Um..." Everett frowned, apparently failing to follow what this had to do with flying, but willing to go along with it for now because it was Rush - and wasn't that a turn up for the books? "Mostly. Why?"  
  
"Scoot over here," Rush called up the 3D schematic of the ship, and then helped to position the sled close enough to the console so Everett could reach the dial and buttons. "If you search through the levels you might be able to find a better circuit. Look on D5. I think there might be something suitable there. There are some particularly wide curves around the dome, where they've left space for earth moving equipment."  
  
The frown had not yet dissipated; this was perhaps a somewhat more sedentary endeavor than the boy had hoped for. "Can't you do that, while I fly some more?"  
  
"No, no," Rush took one of the kinos out from beneath the sledge and plugged it by USB cable into a diagnostic machine in the wall. "Because I'll be busy working out how to get this to go faster."  
  
"Awesome!" Everett's grin blazed back into life. "Then maybe we can have races! That would be even better."  
  
"That would be nothing of the sort." Scott's voice sounded ten years older than his age, laced with so much disapproval. With a baffled sense of grievance, Rush watched Everett close down, look away. It was fairly clear even to him by now that Everett had an issue with Scott. He couldn't think what it could be, because he'd always thought those two were unhealthily close, but not understanding it did not mean he couldn't echo it in spades.  
  
He had nothing against the man personally, but Scott could damn well stop putting that expression on his wee lad's face.  
  
Scott paced in, looking stern, and just a touch hang-dog under it. "Everett. What were you thinking? You're already in trouble for disrespecting Colonel Telford and trying to steal a shuttle, and now this!"  
  
"I'm sorry." It was a very grudging 'sorry', hard mouthed and resentful, with his gaze turned down to the screen, and one hand still nudging the track wheel, so skeletal pictures of Destiny's insides flickered in yellow and blue lines over his averted face.  
  
Scott sighed, looking equally miserable, but determined to do the right thing. "You knocked Mackie in the shoulder pretty hard."  
  
This accusation got through. Everett slumped on his sled and even looked up warily at Scott's face as if to check how angry he was. "Is he okay?"  
  
"No thanks to you." Scott said solemnly, and that seemed unnecessarily harsh to Rush. Could the man not see already that Everett was sorry? Could he not see that pushing the boy would just turn that guilt into anger? "He could have been hurt real bad. You nearly clipped Eli, you scared the willies out of a couple of civilians. You nearly took Dr. Rush's head off."  
  
"There was at least a foot clearance," Rush put in, getting impatient with this already. "I was never in the slightest danger."  
  
Scott breathed in, like he was having to school himself to patience, and that was the trouble with these overly earnest types, wasn't it? No fucking sense of humor.  
  
"Dr. Rush. Please try not to make things worse."  
  
"I'm not making anything worse. The boy's an eight year old child. So he's got into a few scrapes that show he has a bit of imagination and spirit? Is that somehow illegal now? Did you suppose we had miraculously discovered the only child in the universe who was not allowed to play?"  
  
Scott gritted his teeth and attempted to keep his voice level, but Rush could see his hands twitch as if they wanted to clench. Rush smiled, hard, because it had been awhile since one of the military lads tried to browbeat him into anything, and sometimes he missed the challenge.  
  
"He could have been killed," Scott opened, reasonably enough. "He could have killed himself at the speed he was going, and you want to make him go faster?" He flung his hands in the air. "I mean I shouldn't be surprised that you're encouraging him in bad behavior, given how less than stellar your own track record has been, but _he's_ better than this. He could be spending his time doing something useful, not running wild with you cheering him on."  
  
Better than this, huh? Well, of course, young Scott was not seeing Everett at all, was he? Just some figment of his own need. Seeing the perfect child marred by Rush's influence, just as he'd once seen the perfect man. It was pathetic really. No wonder the boy couldn't stand to look at him right now.   
  
"You shouldn't talk to Rush like that!" Everett broke the standoff, shrill and indignant, now standing tall on his sled. "I'm not a stupid kid. I can do all kinds of things. He knows that. He's helping me."  
  
Scott's frown was so tight it looked painful, but Everett's defensive rage was a glorious thing. Bad influence? No. Everett hardly needed it. He was at least thirty percent spit and defiance already, and Rush recognized that with probably inappropriate pride.  
  
"What Dr. Rush should be doing is working out a way to get you back to normal," Real temper in Scott's voice too now, and really this had been a marvelously bracing little break from doing just that. "And he should let other people who are more capable of being responsible adults look after your welfare."  
  
"Responsible adults?" Rush laughed. "On this ship? I think you'll find that's currently me and possibly Mr. Brody. Certainly not you, Lieutenant. Aren't you such a responsible parent you didn't even know you had a child until you were already millions of light years away?"  
  
Scott's clear eyes lit with hurt and fury, and Rush wondered for a moment if he was going to be punched. One day he'd hit a nerve hard enough to get through that thick coating of sticky Catholicism. But it seemed not today. Scott locked it down, vibrating faintly with the effort, his voice gone flat and harsh. "You," he jerked his chin at Rush and pointed at the door. "Out!"  
  
Rush smirked and stayed put.  
  
"And you," Scott turned to Everett, who had watched the whole exchange with a miniature version of that serene, murderous calm that passed for fury in him. "I thought I told you you were grounded. Go back to your room, young man, and stay there until I tell you otherwise."  
  
Deliberately, Everett slid down from his sled and walked over to Rush. Leaning his back against Rush's left leg, he folded his arms in a gesture that was very grown up, surprisingly cold. "You can't tell me what to do. You're not my son, and I'm not yours."  
  
Scott took a step backwards, and for a moment there was devastation on his face, before he smoothed it out and wordlessly walked away.   
  
Silence in the room, the earlier joy snuffed so thoroughly even the memory of it was an extra hurt. They stood quite still for a while and then Everett turned and pressed his face into Rush's waist. Rush huffed a small laugh and dropped a hand on the boy's head in comfort. "Well, we certainly won that one. But I may have to have a word with you about the concept of overkill."

 

* * *

 

  
"Colonel Telford?" Marsden's demeanor had shifted into something potent, a new energy coming off him. Scott saluted, and felt for the first time ever a sense of huge relief at being pinned under Telford's knife-like gaze.  
  
"Lieutenant Scott." Telford kept the triumph down to a decent level, but it was there in the corner of his mouth, turning his smile into a smirk. "By order of the SGC, I am taking command of this vessel, effective immediately."  
  
"Yes sir. You have command." Scott didn't think his hurt feelings should be the biggest thing in this whole mess, but at least now he could put down the responsibility for _absolutely everything else_ and have time to think them through.  
  
"Also by order of Homeworld Command, I am assuming guardianship of the minor Everett Young, until such time as he can be restored to his proper age. Have him brought to me, please."  
  
"Yes sir," Scott felt kind of bad about this, but hey, it turned out he was a worse parent than his negligent stripper ex, so there was another responsibility he was on the whole relieved to shed. He gave the best smile he could muster. "Glad to have you on board, sir."

 


	4. Chapter 4

It had been three days, and Telford was remembering why exactly he had been so keen to leave Destiny last time. When he wasn't here, his mind dwelled on the compulsion to go back. Whose voices the voices were, telling him that Destiny was the path to ultimate knowledge, to god-like power, he couldn't say exactly. Rush's for the first and Kiva's for the second, probably. And yes, despite his issues with the sources of his information he did in fact believe them. He remembered, when he was on Earth, that he was missing out on something legendary.

But on Destiny it all looked very different. It looked like a constant state of privation, and the kind of hot-house of tension and overblown emotion you tended to get in submarines that have been cruising under Arctic Ice for featureless years.

Telford thrived in situations of immediate peril. He was made to be the sharp point of decision when everything was going to hell around him. Back in the AETC he'd been proud of the knowledge that he was wired up for speed and danger - a natural fighter pilot. Put them a generation back, and he'd have been flying Mustangs against the Nazis.

Everett - he looked over at the boy, who was hunched over the coffee table frowning with sustained concentration at a list of verb conjugations in Ancient - was more of a bomber pilot. Better equipped for dealing with long stretches where stress mixed with boredom, and the routine was like being slowly rasped to death by snails.

After having spent three days wading through the minutiae his new position required him to master, Telford was beginning to have unwelcome doubts. Requests for spacesuit time so that airless compartments could be looted of components. Notes about nitrogen content in the latest batch of soil brought on board from Unnamed Planet 247.2.E. Complaints from civilians that their home leave had been cut short for military reasons; complaints from the military that the communication stones were not being used to their full potential. Complaints about bunk beds and filtration units and the spoilage of carton 350 containing a dozen pounds of dried protein powder…

Maybe O'Neill had been right the first time. Maybe this _was_ a post that needed a man who could handle brain numbing tedium. Maybe... but that was defeatist talk.

By dint of cancelling all Young's regular meetings with Camile and Rush, cutting the twice weekly whole-crew briefings in the gate room entirely, and reducing his open office time from _always_ to three hours in the afternoon, he was beginning to make an impact on the paperwork. But sitting in his room filing reports was not what he had hoped for from this assignment.

Sitting too long was bad for him anyway. He got up and stretched, prompting Everett to glance up for a moment from his work. That too was something Telford had improved. He might not be good with tiny children in general, but he knew Everett of old. A bigger nerd you never saw. Of course the kid had been running wild, when they'd taken away everything he had to occupy himself with and given him nothing more age-appropriate to do in return.

It hadn't taken Telford long to draw up a timetable for the boy. Exercise with the marines in the morning, to take the edge off that youthful energy, followed by Ancient language lessons written by Dr. Park, and then an hour and a half of lessons on Destiny's systems, also written by Dr. Park. This kept Dr. Park busy, and in reading the work over, Telford found he often learned something too.

In the afternoons it had been more of the same, but the kid had been so unexpectedly good about the whole thing - almost like he approved - that Telford was thinking of letting him go be apprentice to Brody and Volker this afternoon. The pair of them were working their way through the shield emitter relays, trying to bring them up to a hundred percent. Everett might learn a thing or two by being there to hold torches and tools, and bring cups of tea.

They'd said nothing more about the peelings incident, and Telford had felt better about it on learning that the elaborately prepared trap had not been made for him. That had been the part that got to him most - the deep seated premeditation of it. Knowing it had been set up for Morrison almost made it funny. That guy could benefit from a slop bucket to the head.

Time to mend some bridges. Rubbing his hands over his face, he sighed. "So. I'm thinking I've got the manpower to send out simultaneous exploratory teams into levels A, D and E." Everett looked up, his finger pressed to his notes, keeping place. "I notice you only ever send one exploratory expedition out at once. Why?"

Just like that, Everett's whole posture slid out of wary formality and into ease. God, he was such a soft touch. He even smiled, as though that was all it took for everything to be forgiven.

"Because you can't stop people switching things on, and Ancient stuff can be weird." The childish face scrunched up as if Everett was wrestling with his own mind, trying to get it to put a hard concept into words. "I mean, if you switched on two things at once and something weird happened, you wouldn't know which one made it happen." A pause. "And sometimes two at once can make both of them worse."

Heh, caution. It wasn't really Telford's strong suit, though he appreciated the concept. "Good point," he conceded. "I'll make them military-only teams, strict orders not to touch."

"Sometimes Ancient stuff knows you're coming anyway. It's got force fields and sensors and things. And the ship's always watching us, inside our heads."

Well, that wasn't creepy at all. "Then maybe she'll know better than to activate anything accidentally."

Everett gave a little shrug as if conceding a point. "You're going to do it anyway, aren't you?"

"I think the sooner we have the entire ship under our control, the better we'll be prepared to face whatever comes."

The boy nodded, solemnly. "Maybe you should tell TJ. So she'll be ready," and turned back to his verbs.

Telford returned to reading a report on the state of the shower chemical re-uptake systems, but the atmosphere in the room had eased. Thirteen minutes later, Everett sat back on the sofa, looking very serious.

"I'm sorry I said that to you, about stealing people. That was mean."

Telford smiled, one of the raw places inside him a little soothed. "But not exactly unwarranted."

"Is she okay?"

"Emily?" You got a fairly high tolerance for dealing with the bizarre, in the Stargate program, but discussing ex-wives with an eight year old certainly made the list.

Everett nodded, looking haunted.

"She's doing fine. As far as I know, I mean. She moved to New York, couple of years ago. Is married to a realtor now."

"Oh, I thought you two..."

Shit, no wonder the kid was angry with him. "No. No way. The last thing she wanted was another forces relationship, and the last thing I wanted was another tie to Earth."

"You just did it to hurt me?"

Well, the psych staff did say he ought to talk about these things, and it was easier doing so when he had the authority of age and command behind him. The need to translate everything down to small words also cut through his default tendency to bullshit under threat.

Telford sighed. Not him. It hadn't been _him_ , anyway. "You told me yourself she was the one thing still holding you together. I thought if I took her away, you would fall apart. That was what the Lucian Alliance wanted, so it would be easier to take the ship from you."

"They are bad people!" Everett snarled, torn between tears and fury, and David remembered why the two of them had become friends in the first place. Look at that - not a suggestion any more that he held Telford to blame. The kid had a big heart. He deserved to be rewarded for it.

"Yeah, they really are. Tell you what, why don't we send the first team into level D? See if we can open up that race track you and Rush were scheming about. Five fruit rations says I can beat you on a kino sled any day."

 

* * *

 

Telford was an arse, Rush thought. Not that this was news to anyone after the many years of experience this crew had had with him, but somehow he still found ways to bring it freshly to mind, as if he was a turd you'd stepped in that had rubbed off on your carpets, so that every time you entered a room you were reminded.

Rush summoned a virtual console beside the sarcophagus and began to run the first of several diagnostic and debugging programs, while he reconnected the power lines to the solar collector grid. This was but the grunt work at the end of the race. They were already on the approach to a suitable star. If everything came up clear, he could feed in his new parameters, checked independently by both Eli and Chloe and certified mistake free, and then…

Well. He'd like to say that then they would put young Everett into the box and get Everett Young back out. That was certainly the option he was aiming for.

"So what do you think?" Eli was 'helping' him, ostensibly by keeping an eye on the console and correcting any errors. In reality, he was fiddling with a souped up kino, trying to eke another quarter of a kilometer an hour out of its little motor. "I can't believe Telford's on board with the whole racetrack idea! Seriously? I didn't think that man had a microscopic particle of fun in him, but now I might have to--"

"Eli, might I remind you that it was my idea? My idea that Telford stole and for which he's now getting all the credit. I would say that was entirely in character for the man."

Eli put his screwdriver behind his ear and laughed. "OMG, are you jealous?"

Sometimes - there were days - when the sheer levels of blithering idiocy in which Rush had to operate really drove him to distraction. "I am not jealous, Eli. I merely think that we have slightly more important things to consider. Have you set up that emergency secondary coupler?"

"Well, yeah. Though if something goes wrong with the primary power conduits in the middle of a sun, we're probably going to be blowing up anyway. So what do you think? We should pad the corners or we should pad the riders? What would you call a kino sled racer anyway?"

"Are you going to concentrate on this or not? Because if you're just going to blether, I'll do better without you."

Eli was as hard to hit as a helium balloon. Even if you got a strike in, he'd just bob out of the way and then bob straight back, continually light hearted and chirpy. It was very irritating. Now he just opened his eyes wide as if to say 'wow, rude,' and blew out a long breath.

"Look, I get it. You're worried. We're kind of running an unprecedented risky science experiment, on an eight year old who also happens to be Colonel Young, and we've got no way of doing a test run first, but..." Eli laughed nervously. "Actually when I put it like that, I'm not surprised that you're freaked. That is kind of scary."

"Thank you Eli. You've been most reassuring." Rush got up from his knees to find the diagnostics had completed without finding a fault. He closed his eyes.

Did the boy really have to go back in? Rush had tested the sarcophagus blithely enough on himself, but Young's de-aging had knocked his confidence in its reliability. One little glitch and a dead child later and he would bitterly regret taking the chance.

But it was surely only a matter of time before Telford blew the whole ship sky high with his reckless poking about in things he didn't understand, and Rush had already felt the shift in power that came with unshared military rule. It had been a long time since he'd felt like a second class citizen aboard, and he didn't intend to get used to the sensation.

And for all that - for all the sensible reasons, for all that Everett was cute and affectionate, and no trouble to have around, when fucking Telford actually allowed him to come around - Rush missed Young increasingly every day.

Hard choices. He prided himself on being able to make them, and he would do so now, for the sake of the crew.

He re-checked his final parameters, fed them in and let Eli check them a final time, would have radioed Everett if fucking Telford had not taken the radio off the boy and insisted all his messages should pass through him. Bastard.

"Colonel Telford? Please tell Everett that we're waiting for him in the sarcophagus room, whenever he's ready."

He pictured the boy as a sleet of numbers. Each cell's age being increased by forty. _It's not a conceptually difficult operation. It'll be fine._

_It will be fine._

There was still something very execution style in the way they filed in. Everett once more in the clothes in which he came out of the sarcophagus, laundered now, black and baggy and crow-like around a child who was trying hard to look brave.

Rush had sometimes thought Young had no imagination at all, but it was clear from Everett's petrified stillness that he was picturing every way it might end badly.

Telford marched in at the boy's back. TJ and James came after, with the folded bundle and boots of the rest of the Colonel's uniform.

Looking pale and determined, Everett stopped in front of Rush. "If it goes wrong, do you think it will hurt?"

In the corner of the room, Telford was standing with his arms folded and there were many things Rush didn't want Telford to know, but he would be damned if he let that stop him from sinking to his knees and pulling the boy in for a long hug.

"It won't hurt," he promised, hoping it would be true. It certainly wouldn't hurt being dematerialized, and if Everett was rematerialized dead then it would be a painless way to go.

There was, however, a real possibility that he might be rematerialized _wrong_. In which case horrible lingering suffering could not be ruled out. But they'd all decided to go through with this now, so Rush didn't think the boy needed to hear that. "It'll be over in moments, and then you'll be back to normal."

"But if it does go wrong, you will remember that I--"

Rush laid a finger over Everett's mouth, because he'd heard it before and didn't quite believe it. It came so easily to the child. It cost him so little to say. "Tell me when you get back."

Everett smiled wanly and nodded. Then he looked up at Eli, at TJ and at Telford, and he slowly stepped away from Rush's arms.

"Okay. I'm ready. Let's do this."

 

* * *

 

Young's first thought when he woke up was, _Shit. They didn't give me any pants_.

And then he laughed, because confronting a group of concerned friends while wearing boxers was hardly going to be the most humiliating part of this whole experience.

The lid of the sarcophagus slid back, and then Rush's face was peering down at him, shifting from fear to hope to joy in a split second. Young nearly reached out, yanked him down into a long, indulgent kiss, but he remembered just in time that their relationship still wasn't technically public knowledge, and that Telford was standing in the room watching. Hmm. Better wait on that, then. But he did flash a grin up at that dear, familiar face and wonder how the hell he got lucky enough to have this beautiful, mischievous, unpredictable genius for his lover. Rush alone was compensation for a lifetime of hard knocks, and for a moment all Young could do was drink in the sight of him.

The delight in Rush's eyes ebbed. A touch of worry wrinkled his forehead. "Young?"

"Yeah, I'm okay," Young assured him. He sat up slowly, noting that his head was swimming and his limbs felt a bit like they were made of jelly. Wobbly. Right.

"How do you feel?" Rush asked, and there was still a hint of uncertainty to his tone. "How much do you remember?"

"All of it. I feel fine," Young insisted. He tried bracing his arms against the rim of the sarcophagus and lifting himself out, but his muscles whined in protest and he gave up the attempt. "Okay," he admitted, "I'm a little shaky at the moment."

"Here." TJ stepped forward, brandishing a canteen and another ration bar. How she still had any of those things left, he had no idea. Careful management, he guessed. "Eat this and wait a few minutes before you try to stand up."

"I'd rather have my pants," Young teased, but he accepted the ration bar and canteen gratefully. He suddenly realized that he was ravenous and extremely thirsty. He tore into the power bar and ate it in three bites, and washed it down with the entire contents of the canteen. Only then did he start feeling marginally more like himself.

He couldn't quite seem to stop smiling through it all. The weakness, the hunger, the thirst, the lack of pants, the circle of watchful eyes, none of that seemed to make a dent in his good mood. He felt refreshed and happy and secure in a way he hadn't for… well, years. Decades? Maybe. Apparently, shedding his responsibilities and spending a week as an eight-year-old had done him a world of good.

It was Rush who fetched his pants from James and handed them to Young. There was a conspiratorial twinkle in his eyes as they met Young's, but also a hint of a question. Yes, they had a lot to talk about, Young thought, but not now. Not while TJ was fussing over him and Eli was starting to chatter away about kino sled racing and James was trying hard to pretend that she wasn't making the most of this opportunity to see her commanding officer in his underwear and Telford was looking on with an indulgent expression that made Young want to laugh and hit him at the same time. Later, when Young had sorted through all the mess that his younger self had generated and re-assumed command, they would talk. Maybe by then he would have recovered that childlike ability to discuss his feelings without fear, and he would be able to say the words that Rush needed to hear.

He should have said them months ago. He should have guessed that Rush, egotistical and overpowering as he was, had his vulnerable points. Young shied away from that kind of open-hearted discussion on instinct because words, they were powerful things, resonating with truth and unrecoverable once you set them free. Confessing his love for another person felt like splitting himself open and laying all his pieces on the ground for that person to treasure or step on as they saw fit. And Young had been stepped on more than once.

Rush treated words more like weapons, throwing them recklessly into the silence to see if any of them would find a mark whenever he felt threatened. Or sometimes he treated them like tools, manipulating them to produce the desired result, never seeming to value them for their own sake. Young had come to believe that it would take more than mere words to get through to him, and for the most part he had been right. Action, that's what Rush paid attention to. That's what he trusted in. But actions could be interpreted many ways - that's why language was invented in the first place. Sometimes a simple ‘I love you' really was called for. It shouldn't have taken months of time together and a near death experience for Young to realize that.

He would fix it. He wouldn't waste any more time keeping Rush in suspense. As soon as they got a private moment alone, he'd say the words. Cut himself open, give Rush every last part of him. Life was too uncertain to play love safe.

By the time Young had decided this, he'd managed to struggled into his pants and fasten his belt, and that made him feel considerably more in command of the situation. Rush and TJ helped him out of the sarcophagus and, after replacing the lid, eased him down to sit on top of it. His spine felt less than solid at the moment, so he grasped Rush's wrist for balance as he surveyed the room. Everyone was still looking at him, and he felt rather as if he ought to make a speech or something. Damn, this was awkward. He decided to just ask for his boots, socks, and jacket instead. Eli was talking enough for the both of them anyway.

"You're still on board with the kino sled race track idea, right? I'm pretty sure that with a little more tweaking I can top your highest speed by about 50%, but of course we'll have to modify the sleds for safety because that's, like, hella fast. I was just saying we need a new name for the racing kino sleds. Something really catchy."

"Kino skimmer," Young said absently as he finished lacing up one boot and started on the other.

"Yeah, maybe," Eli said, doubtful but apparently willing to consider it.

"No one's riding around on kino sleds or skimmers or whatever you want to call them until I approve those safety modifications," TJ warned.

"Plenty of time to discuss all that later," Young said as he slipped on his jacket and tried to stand.

Rush immediately wrapped an arm around his torso and helped him to his feet. He took part of Young's weight, standing close enough for Young to pick up hints of herbal cleanser and sweat wafting from his long, feathery hair. Young kind of wanted to bury his face in that hair and forget everything else for a little while, but he managed to control the impulse.

"Yes, I think that's fairly low on your priority list at the moment," Telford remarked, sounding amused. He was standing in the doorway and leaning on the frame, his arms crossed over his chest. His smile was easy and uncomplicated, no hints of scorn or jealousy or smugness. He just seemed pleased to see his friend restored to normal again.

Young returned his smile gratefully. "Yeah, true. Thanks for all your help, David."

He felt the stares of every other person in the room intensify in response to that remark, but he didn't give a damn about their surprise. Sure, his relationship with Telford had been rocky for some time, especially after the whole bodyswapping incident, but there was no denying that Telford had known just what to do to keep an eight-year-old Everett safely occupied. He'd also made significant headway through the mountain of paperwork on Young's desk, which would definitely make Young's life easier for a while. He deserved some credit for all that, and for what he'd said about Emily.

Telford accepted his thanks with a nod and a knowing look. Yeah, they were okay. Their past was a jumbled-up, confusing mess of betrayal and mind control, attempted coups and childish pranks, and maybe it was time to sweep it all under the rug and start afresh as friends. It had worked for Young and Rush, after all.

"Why don't we head to your quarters, go over a few things before you retake command?" Telford suggested.

"I'd rather see you in the infirmary, sir. 'Check a few things. Then you really need some more food and rest," TJ urged.

Young shot Rush a sidelong look. The man still had an arm around Young, but aside from that he seemed checked out of the whole scene. Deep in thought, perhaps, or simply exhausted after all the work he'd put into fixing Young. If he had any opinion on how Young should spend the rest of his day, he didn't voice it. Fine, then. Their business could wait just a little while longer.

"Infirmary first, then I'll meet with you over dinner, David," Young decided. He thought he heard a soft sigh from Rush, but it was probably his imagination.

The trip to the infirmary was slow at first, with TJ leading the way, Young following with Rush at his side, and Telford bringing up the rear for reasons best known to himself. Eli had remained behind, offering them a distracted wave as he turned his attention back to his kino, while James had been dismissed and was probably even now spreading the good news about Young's successful return to adulthood.

By the time he reached the infirmary door, Young was recovered enough to walk without assistance. He glanced at Rush as they separated, but Rush was looking abstracted and failed to meet his gaze. He excused himself almost immediately, leaving Young to TJ and Telford's care, and wandered off to parts of the ship unknown. Young let him go without protest. He'd catch up with him later.

TJ's examination was brief. Young was in perfect health. Better, probably, than he'd been since his arrival on Destiny. Young, still brimming with that unfamiliar and intoxicating happiness that he'd felt on awakening, was not surprised to hear it. He couldn't remember when he'd last felt this alive, and he still couldn't stop smiling.

Before she released him, TJ asked one more time, "Are you sure you're feeling okay?" She looked vaguely puzzled yet also slightly amused by his behavior.

"I feel fantastic," he assured her, perhaps a little too readily.

Her amusement deepened, and she seemed reassured. "I think you might still have a tiny bit of eight-year-old in you, sir," she said.

Actually, she was probably right. This was probably the delayed high of surviving a brush with death combined with some of the overflowing energy of his younger self. "It's probably an improvement," he said.

"It is certainly a nice break from the long face and thunderclouds," Telford confirmed helpfully.

Young just snorted in response. That had hit a little too close to home for argument.

Telford was at Young's side as he left the infirmary, and Young was amused to realize that his old friend was actually shadowing him out of residual concern for his welfare rather than some other, more suspicious reason. Imagine that.

Obedient to TJ's parting instructions, Young turned his steps toward the mess. His meeting with Telford over dinner was relaxed and painless. After several days in command of Destiny, Telford seemed eager to wind things up and return to Earth. Of course, give him a few days on Earth, and he'd be raring to get back to Destiny again. He was just like a cat, Young reflected - always on the wrong side of a closed door. Right now, though, Young was in good humor with him. Even the unavoidable fact that Telford was about to file a report with Homeworld Command that Young would never live down wasn't enough to spoil the companionable atmosphere between them.

But once the transfer of command was official and he had seen Telford off in the stones room, Young knew it was time to brace himself for a less palatable responsibility. As much as he would prefer to track Rush down now and drag him to bed for celebration sex and pillow talk, there was one other person he needed to speak to first, and it wasn't likely to be a comfortable conversation.


	5. Chapter 5

People thought Scott was stupid, but he wasn't. He knew this conversation was coming, because - despite all the mean things he might have let himself think over this past few days - he still believed that Young was a good commander, and more than that, a good man.

So when he was leaning just inside the newly opened door on level D5, looking into the darkness of mostly unexplored corridors beyond, his heart rate only kicked up marginally at Young's familiar footfall.

"Lieutenant Scott? A word please."

Scott nodded and fell into step with the man like this was any one of a thousand previous occasions, on which he had felt sheltered in Young's shadow.

A sideways glance showed his CO was looking kind of cautiously relieved. Maybe he was really grateful to be an adult again, or he'd just finally got some sleep, but there was a new bounce to his step. Scott had grown quite used to grading him on a one to ten scale of likelihood of suicide. Today he wasn't even making a one.

That was good. And the fact that Scott still found it good - the fact that Scott was pleased about that? Well, that was good too.

"You looked any further than this?"

Scott smiled. It felt disloyal to think, but dang, Young was really bad at the heart to heart stuff, wasn't he? Stalling for time. Check.

"No sir. James took a team through this morning, reported no threats. I was about to go in just now."

"Okay, let's take a walk."

James might have been through already, but this was the first time in this newly opened section for Scott. Scuttlebutt was, everyone was hoping the larger-than-normal corridors Rush had seen on the schematic would translate into somewhere they could hold races. Now he didn't have to worry about small children getting themselves killed, he was kind of excited about that himself.

Course, it wouldn't be suitable. It would be packed with crates full of things they couldn't use. That was more or less the way luck went on Destiny. And maybe he shouldn't be worrying about that right now, when what he really needed to do was to figure out a way to start this talk he didn't really want to have.

Silence. Destiny flicked on yellow stripes of floor lighting as they strolled. A couple of yards later and they opened a door onto a cavernous crossways corridor. It ran out of their sight in both directions, high vaulted above their heads, with cathedral like arches where tiers of larger lights had begun to flicker in an attempt to come to life after millennia of disuse.

The vast emptiness felt luxurious after the tight confines they were used to, it's dim light and hollow spaces putting Scott in mind of church.

He'd been doing a lot of self-examination recently, searching his conscience like a penitent coming to confession, and eventually he had reached some painful conclusions. It might have all gone faster and easier if he'd been doing it in here.

The lights above finally tinked into life one after another. Spots and then floods of illumination streaked out from their epicentre, until the ceiling was an unbroken filament of yellow-white, familiar as sunshine. "Wow," said Young, reverentially. "We've needed something like this."

Scott turned his face up into the light, expecting it to be warm. They ate enough, these days, so starvation was off the table for now, but the radiance on his skin felt like the easing of another kind of famine.   
  
"Yes sir," Scott agreed, feeling better about the whole encounter already. Maybe it wasn't even necessary to say anything. Maybe everything was already forgiven. "TJ's going to be stoked. There's always a run on vitamin D supplements when we're in FTL."

"I'm thinking, race track on Fridays and park the rest of the week. Maybe move PT in here. Chloe's yoga sessions too, if she wants."

They ambled on up to the nearest curve, where the sunway banked right and swept around one of the dome struts. A deck above there were plants in hydroponics that could maybe be moved down here in wheeled containers. Cleared away for races – which Scott would win, of course – and then brought back in so couples could walk under swaying leaves and pick fruit straight off the trees.

"She'd like that."

The right hand curve switchbacked into a left hand sweep, the floor of which had been stepped and recessed into a long pit. There were grills down there but they were only a foot square, so if it was a gladiatorial arena for which those were holding areas, the fighters would be the size of rats.

"Complete with swimming pool." Young raised his eyebrows, "Nice." And oh yes, so it was. Man! _Everyone_ would be stoked, once they could find enough water to fill it.

They stood contemplating the hole while the joy of discovery passed into strained awkwardness around them. And dang it, now was the time to just come right out and speak.

"I... Um. I'm sorry, sir."

"Matthew, I'm sorry."

Young was apologizing to him? That part he hadn't expected. He looked up in surprise, found the Colonel looking away, hands in his pockets.

"What have _you_ got to be sorry about?"

Young smiled. Not a happy smile, but still easier than he had worn for years. "I have got to stop shouting these things at you when I get mad."

"You, ah," Scott had had a while to think about this, and he had – he'd parsed it out as carefully as a Bible reading, unteasing all the meanings with Chloe's sympathetic help. "You had every reason to be mad at me, sir. I mean, you were right. I, um..."

It was a mess, that's what it was. Just a whole swamp of need and regrets and wishful thinking. "I did look at you and think of Matthew, and all the things I hadn't been able to do for him. I did... I mean, I know it's no fun to know you're only cared about because you're a substitute for someone else. And I know that I've been doing that to you for a long time."

He thought about Father Byrne, and how pulling Young back from the brink of alcoholism had felt like somehow he'd put right the wrong he'd done in letting his guardian die. Like he'd finally managed to save one of his fathers, so everything must be okay now. He must have achieved the task God had set for him and learned the lesson for which they had been brought into his life.

Talk about selfish! Nice little solitary universe he lived in where he was the centre and Young existed entirely to satisfy his need for a father to save, for a son to take care of.

Lately, he cringed when he thought back on his fever dream of Cloverdale, because that had been an idol. If Young somehow knew _that_ was what Scott thought of him, no wonder he was angry. "You've been trying to get me to wake up for a while now," he admitted. "But I didn't want to."

Young's smile had a hard edge of cynicism and pain even though he was directing it at a wall. "This is my fault, Matthew. There's a big part of me that would have liked to have you as a son, and I let it... I let us get too close. You're young, and on your first posting. It was natural for you to feel that way. I should have put a stop to it a hell of a lot earlier. Not encouraged you and then yelled about it afterwards."

So apparently they were both apologizing for caring about each other too much in the wrong way. Scott had to laugh, because God, what would Eli make of that? It was kind of funny, wasn't it? _"I'm sorry I like you.” “Well, I'm sorry I like you too."_

What did he say now? _I'm glad to have it cleared out of the way, because you might occasionally be disappointing as a real person, but I think, once I get to know you, I might actually admire you for yourself?_

Maybe not. That all sounded far too heavy, far too embarrassing.

"Well, sir, you weren't exactly at your best then either."

Young laughed, surprised and pleased, as if he could tell that Scott's forgiveness was mixed with a good dose of clear judgment, and he liked it that way. "No kidding."

There was a lot of color in the world that Scott hadn't been seeing for a long time. His chest felt looser, and his heart stronger in the cage of his ribs. Taking away the illusions felt like taking away a smothering veil. Scott had no father, and his son was millions of light years away, but that wasn't the end of the world.

The Young of Cloverdale had given him all the affection he could possibly want, and no straight answers, no useful advice at all, no help. When he thought about it even for a second, Scott already preferred this one.

"How d'you feel about friends, sir?"

"I can always use one more."

 

* * *

 

Rush wasn't answering his radio. That was technically fine - he wasn't on shift or even on call at the moment. He had been working almost nonstop for the past week on the problem of turning little Everett back into Colonel Young, so he'd earned a break. But when Young had checked Rush's usual off-hour haunts - the observation deck, the math corridor, Young's own quarters - he hadn't found him. So now he was making his way along the corridor to Rush's quarters on the off-chance that Rush had, for inscrutable reasons, decided to go to sleep there instead of in Young's bed.

He probably wasn't even asleep, Young thought. It was too early in the evening, and Rush hated wasting valuable time regardless of his exhaustion level. Young guessed that he would find Rush sitting up in bed, scribbling on one of his notepads, making the most of his freedom to turn his mind to other problems besides fixing Young.

But Young was wrong. When he opened the door to Rush's quarters, the room was dim, and he spotted a suspicious lump under the bedcovers with nothing but a few glinting strands of hair peeking out. Rush had gone to bed. In his own room. Without Young.

Rush stirred under the covers as Young stepped into the room and closed the door. He sat up slowly and eyed Young through a disheveled curtain of graying hair. There was no sign in his expression that he was happy to see Young or that he appreciated having his rest disturbed.

For the first time in hours, Young's good mood took a solid blow. This was not exactly the eager lover he'd been expecting to find. "Should I go?" he asked softly.

Rush gave his head a brief jerk, but the gesture seemed intended to displace the hair in front of his eyes, not to answer Young's question. "Did you see Telford off, then?"

Young blinked. "Yeah, a little while ago," he answered. He took a few cautious steps toward the bed, and when Rush didn't immediately order him away, sat down on the edge of it. "There were some things we needed to go over first, but yeah. He's gone."

He had hoped that that would reassure Rush - that Rush's dislike toward Telford was fueling this odd behavior, and that he'd relax now. But his expression was still closed, and he might as well have been covered in spikes, his posture so plainly screamed 'don't touch me.' So Young kept his hands to himself and waited for enlightenment.

"The two of you seem to have settled your differences admirably."

That sounded like a clue, but Young wasn't sure quite how to interpret it yet. Was Rush mad because Young had repaired his friendship with Telford? That seemed unlike him, somehow. Rush knew how to put aside old grudges when it became expedient to do so. His relationship with Young was evidence enough of that.

"Yeah, I think we did," Young replied. "David was a Godsend. He gave me things to do to keep me from going stir crazy when I was a kid, and we got a chance to clear the air a bit."

"Godsend," Rush repeated with just a hint of a question peeking out from under the sneer in his tone.

Oh, that was vulnerability. That was insecurity disguised as contempt, and Young couldn't believe he hadn't recognized it earlier. Rush was jealous of Telford. No, not of Telford himself - hopefully he knew Young better than that. But of Young's gratitude toward Telford, and of the time Young and Telford had spent together while Rush had doggedly worked on reprogramming the sarcophagus, yes.

"I would rather have been with you, of course," Young said, and then mentally kicked himself for his lack of subtlety when Rush shot him a scornful look. "Oh, come on," he said helplessly, "cut me some slack here. I feel like I'm walking through a minefield."

Maybe mentioning mines wasn't the best strategy, actually, because there was a momentary flash of pain and fear in Rush's eyes. Young didn't really have much memory of the anti-personnel mine that had nearly killed him, but clearly Rush remembered the aftermath vividly. But maybe it had been the right thing to say after all, because some of the stiffness went out of Rush's shoulders and his expression softened. Maybe the reminder of what he'd nearly lost was enough to break through some of his resentment now. Young hoped so, because he didn't know what else to say, and this was starting to feel like one of his non-arguments with Emily - those conversations that seemed outwardly polite but were charged with guilt and anger and various other mysterious, unexpressed emotions below the surface.

"Well," Rush said in a somewhat lighter tone, "I was busy, wasn't I?"

"Yeah, fixing me," Young said, cautiously relieved. "Thank you for that."

Rush snorted. Clearly a 'thank you' wasn't what he had been waiting for. It didn't take much thought to guess what he wanted - what he'd wanted ever since he'd placed a finger over little Everett's lips to silence the 'I love you' that had almost tripped off his childish tongue.

_'Tell me when you get back.'_

Young hadn't, yet. He'd gone to the infirmary with TJ, eaten dinner with Telford, explored the newly-opened section with Scott, all before he'd taken the time to tell Rush that he loved him. He'd put it off because it was daunting, and because he was distracted, and because he thought it wouldn't matter much to Rush either way. He had been wrong.

Maybe Young should have just kissed Rush the moment he had peered into the sarcophagus. Maybe he should have just thrown caution to the wind and told him right then and there that he loved him. Sure, a room full of people would have seen and heard it, and the news would certainly have traveled back to Homeworld Command with Telford, but was that such a bad thing? He wasn't breaking any regulations by being with Rush. And as for Destiny's crew, they were going to find out sooner or later anyway.

Yes, that was what he should have done. A public declaration would have been riskier and therefore more convincing. It would be harder to make Rush believe him now.

Young made the attempt anyway. "What I said to you that first night--" he began, but Rush interrupted him.

"You were eight years old." Rush's voice was quiet, reasonable. The voice of a scientist who understood that the universe didn't always work the way he wanted it to, and that his job was to accept it and understand it as it was. "I'd hardly hold you to anything you said at that age."

"I was eight," Young protested, "not stupid. I meant what I said. It's still true."

Rush offered him a weary smile that plainly meant, 'don't patronize me.'

Fuck _that_.

"I love you," Young said, firmly and clearly. He was growing frustrated now, shedding his guilt in favor of exasperation. Fucking Rush, who always thought he understood every problem better than anyone else, and who was so suspicious that he couldn't believe the honest truth until it was pounded through his skull with a jackhammer.

"Can we just leave it?" Rush asked softly, closing his eyes as if the conversation was starting to pain him.

He looked so tired and old that Young checked his own irritation. Rush wasn't actually _trying_ to be infuriating at the moment. He was probably trying to be self-sacrificing or something uncharacteristically sweet like that.

No, not uncharacteristic. That wasn't fair. Rush had been willing to sacrifice his own desires and interests for Young in the past. In fact, Rush had a much better track record for this kind of thing than Young did. Young walked around trailing the wreckage of numerous failed relationships behind him, but Rush? Rush had loved well, if somewhat tragically. He probably expected this to be tragic too. Unrequited love would go so nicely with death and betrayal, after all. Like a complete set.

 _Jesus_.

"Look," Young said more gently, "let me put it another way, okay? When I was in your body, I dreamed about Gloria. I don't think I ever told you that."

Rush let out a soft hiss and shook his head.

"I felt how much you loved her. It knocked me flat actually. I'd never…" Young paused, swallowed, made himself continue. "I'd never felt anything like it. I just wanted you to love me like that."

Rush opened his eyes and met Young's gaze curiously. He looked like he was finally paying attention, so Young thought it might be safe to reach out, tuck a bit of Rush's hair behind one ear, and cup his hand over Rush's bristly left cheek. Rush leaned into the touch, but he kept his eyes fixed on Young's face with that wide-open, intense expression that always made Young feel like he was drowning in the best way.

Rush was listening. That was a good sign. Young's heart might be pounding and his throat might feel too tight to get another word out, but he had to try anyway, because Rush was on the verge of believing him.

"When our minds were uploaded to Destiny," he forced out, "I had to work hard to keep you from seeing how… how I felt. I wish I hadn't. I wish you had seen it then."

A soft smile tugged at the corners of Rush's lips. "That would certainly have changed a few things," he murmured.

"It would have been better," Young said wistfully. "It would have been easier. All this time I've been wishing this could be easier for us. Less complicated. But I've been making it complicated."

"It's always going to be complicated," Rush pointed out, his smile widening just a little bit further. "This past week was evidence of that."

"No, this week was easy," Young said, and then when Rush's brows went up in amusement and doubt, he hastened to add, "Yeah, I know. Explosions, technical difficulties, lots of work for you. But us? The time we spent together? That was fun. That's what I've been wanting for a while."

Rush was still watching him attentively, his expression open and receptive, burning with hope and fragile joy. A thread of confidence wove its way through the anxiety in Young's mind and loosened that invisible hand that seemed to be clenched around his throat. He could do this. He _was_ doing this. He was pouring out his heart, one halting sentence after another, and Rush was taking it all in like he treasured every word. The effort would be worthwhile if Rush would just keep looking at him like that.

"When I was dying," Young said, and Rush flinched slightly at the words, "I kept thinking of this pond I used to go to when I was a kid. It was secluded and no one else went there much, so it was a good place to clear my head. Everything became simpler there. So I wanted to take you there, because then this," he waved a hand between their bodies, "would get simpler too."

"Interesting theory," Rush commented.

He had taken to gently rubbing his scratchy cheek against Young's palm, which was slightly distracting and extremely endearing. Young wanted to lean forward and catch his smiling lips in a kiss, but it wasn't time for that yet. Not quite yet.

"I was out of my head with pain," Young said. "It doesn't have to make sense. My point is, _this_ is what I really wanted. Actual time getting to know each other."

"Which usually involves talking. Not your forte."

Rush was definitely feeling happier now if he was starting to tease him, Young thought. "That's right," he acknowledged dryly. "I hope you appreciate the fact that I've been running my mouth anyway."

"Well, you do seem to be doing marginally better than usual. Feel free to continue."

Young snorted and rubbed his thumb in a small circle through Rush's scruff. "There's that new section of the ship. I walked through it with Scott a little while ago. Artificial sunlight, a big, open area, a place for a pool. Add a few plants and it won't look so different from my pond, if you squint."

Rush stilled and shot him a questioning look.

"I'm asking you out on a date," Young explained.

"A date?" Rush's eyes widened briefly, and then they crinkled suddenly in amusement.

"Yeah, you know. A walk in the park, some hand-holding, a few mild PDAs…"

"We're not out to the rest of the crew."

"Well, I'd assemble everyone in the gate room and make a public announcement, but I don't think that's really our style, somehow," Young said. And then he added with a twinge of guilt, "I outed us to Greer already, though. I just remembered that."

"Troublesome brat," Rush remarked, but he seemed pleased.

"An honest, troublesome brat."

Rush's smile faltered, sliding halfway into uncertainty once more. But there was enough lingering hope in his gaze to reassure Young.

"I do love you, Rush," Young said earnestly, hoping that the moment was right. Hoping that he would finally be believed.

There was a long silence. Rush was still staring into his eyes in a way that was familiar yet somehow new, because none of Young's defenses were in place and he wasn't used to wearing his emotions so openly. It felt like being dissected under a microscope, so why was Rush the one who looked so vulnerable? The man's eyes were starting to look suspiciously wet, and he was blinking while he tilted his head in that bird-like way he had, and his lips trembled like he might start sobbing or laughing at any moment.

"Okay," he finally said, breathless and unsteady. He turned his face into Young's hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. "Okay," he said again, and then he was grabbing Young's wrist and yanking him closer.

Young went willingly, and let out a soft, contented murmur as Rush pressed his lips to his. The kiss was unexpectedly light and tentative at first, as if Rush was feeling uncertain or even shy. Eventually Young's impatience prompted him to lick at the seam of Rush's lips, and Rush invited him in with a little groan of approval, but even then the kiss remained gentle and unhurried. There was no overwhelming sense of urgency. It was enough to feel this closeness again - closer now than ever - and enjoy the moment. Young wrapped his arms around Rush's torso, and Rush wove his fingers into Young's curls. A soft tugging sensation on his scalp told Young that everything was as it should be. Everything was perfect.

But when Young began to slide his hands up under Rush's shirt, enjoying the sensation of warm, bare skin under his palms, Rush broke away and gripped Young's arms, stopping him.

"Wha?" Young murmured, confused and somewhat drugged by their kiss. The hard part was over - he had spilled his guts to Rush, and Rush had believed him, so now it was time for the celebration sex, right? That was the natural order of things.

Rush's eyes had sharpened again, and there was mischief brewing behind his serious gaze. "I seem to recall you saying that you would never want to cuddle without clothes on."

Heat crept across Young's cheeks as he recalled that conversation. He _had_ said that, hadn't he? Oh, Rush must have gotten a kick out of that. "I was eight!" he protested.

"Well, if I'm to believe the things you said as an eight-year-old…"

Young snorted. "I see. So you'll believe that I love you as long as we never have sex again. Because that's logical."

"It seems like a sound premise," Rush said innocently.

"Uh-huh." Young watched Rush's smug face for a moment, then decided to call his bluff. "Okay," he said, and bent to unlace his boots. He tucked his socks into them and tossed them aside, then he pulled back the covers so he could crawl under them.

"Wait," Rush said, in a tone that suggested things had not quite turned out the way he had expected.

"Hush," Young murmured. "C'mere." He tugged on Rush's sleeve until Rush lay down beside him, and then he pulled the covers over both of them. "We'll cuddle with clothes on, then."

He thought he might have heard a muffled 'fuck,' but he wasn't paying much attention. The bedding was warm, and he was spooned up against the familiar form of his lover, and his happy energy was starting to give way to a happy drowsiness instead. After the week he'd had, it seemed natural to allow his lust to slide seamlessly into sleep. He didn't mind putting off that celebration sex a little while longer, especially if Rush had somewhat inadvertently demanded abstinence as a test of his love. Young was up to the challenge, and by morning, Rush would be too impatient to tease him any longer.

As it turned out, Rush didn't even last that long.


End file.
